1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a drive control device for use chiefly in the field of medical science, and more particularly to a drive control device which operates a drive mechanism for effecting various positional adjustments, for example, in a stereoscopic microscope.
2. Related Background Art
Stereoscopic microscopes are widely used for medical treatments such as operations and examinations, for researches and for the industries. These microscopes are useful to improve the precision and safety of the treatment.
Usually, a stereoscopic microscope is comprised of a microscope body comprising a combination of a binocular stereoscopic microscope and an illuminating device, and a stage for supporting the microscope body and freely effecting positional adjustment. FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings shows the general construction of a stereoscopic microscope of the conventional popular floor installation type having a binocular microscope comprising right and left independent observation optical systems Ma and Mb and used chiefly as a microscope for operation. Affixed strut 2 is provided on a stand 1, and a movable arm 3 is mounted on the fixed strut 2 for rotation and sliding movement in vertical direction indicated by bilateral arrow A. An S-Y fine movement device 4 containing therein a drive mechanism for fine movement in X-Y directions indicated by arrows B and C is rotatably suspended from the movable arm 3, and a microscope head 5 is connected to the lower end of the X-Y fine movement device 4 so as to be slidable in vertical direction indicated by bilateral arrow D by a vertically moving device. Also, a foot switch bed 6 is connected to the stand 1 by an electric cord, and a switch 7 for X-Y direction fine movement, a switch 8 for vertical coarse movement, a switch 9 for zooming and a switch 10 for focusing are provided on the foot switch bed 6.
The vertical coarse movement and X-Y direction fine movement indicated by arrows A-D and the zooming and focusing of the optical system are accomplished by an electric motor, and the control of the electric motor is accomplished by a foot properly stepping on the switches 7-10 arranged on the foot switch bed 6. However, such a stepping operation makes the positions of the switches difficult to know, involves the danger of malfunctioning and causes the reduced safety of operations or the like.
As a method of solving tee above-noted problem, an attempt has been made to control all the driving of the above-described various devices by means of voice, but in this method, the drive mechanism is directly controlled by voice and therefore, not only fine adjustment of each drive cannot be freely accomplished by the operator, but also there are many kinds of voice to be recognized and thus, the apparatus becomes complicated and there is the possibility of malfunctioning, so this method is not yet put into practical use.
To overcome the disadvantage peculiar to the foot switch, a so-called hand controller is also known in which a switch board having a number of switch buttons arranged on or closely adjacent t the surface of the microscope head and it is operated by the operator actuating it with his finger tip, but in this case, the operator's finger tip directly touches the switch buttons and therefore, the problem of disinfection or sterilization arises. For this reason, it has been conceived to gas-disinfect the entire device having the switch buttons each time it is used, or to attach disinfected rubber caps or the like to the switch buttons, or to operate the device with a disinfecting cover attached thereto, but these works are cumbersome and moreover cannot be said to be sufficiently germfree. Further, the manual actuation of the switch buttons somewhat oscillates the microscope head to make it difficult to accomplish sufficiently precise fine adjustment. Also, since the operator operates the apparatus while looking into the microscope, it is difficult for the operator to discriminate between the positions of the numerous switch buttons, and the risk of malfunctioning is also great.